Lynne has been especially busy this week, and with Anne's help they finished painting the trim that sits on top of the wall which divides the production area from the retail space. They also painted the legs of and washed the exteriors of all five brite tanks, which allowed us to move them into place inside of the cellar this evening.

I ran power to the grain mill and hose from the bulk C02 tank to the secondary regulators inside of the cellar. I also began work on the grain hydrator.

Shaun has been working on welding up the work platform which will sit between the brew kettle and the mash tun,

My dad turned a coulpe of teflon valve seats on his lathe and is constructing the table which will be mounted in the retail space inside of the front window.

Time to order some ingredients for the first few batches of beer!

Of course this means we are in crunch mode to finish up! Now that the production floor is finished, Lynne, Annabelle, and I moved everything out of the cellar, putting those pieces which could be located in their final locations in place and finding temporary places for everything else. Lynne continued painting the trim that covers the tops of the walls. I acid etched the floor in the cellar so that it can be sealed with epoxy paint. I also worked on hooking up equipment, including the glycol and temperature controls for the two open top fermentors.

The list is growing shorter, but there is still a fair amount of work to be done...

I finished attaching the stainless steel skins to the outside of the mash tun and only need to complete the construction of the cover to call it done. Shaun has begun work on welding the steel for a platform that will sit between the brew kettle and the mash tun, so that should be completed at about the same time that the equipment is being put back into place.

Lastly, we've now had over 2000 hits to our web site - interest continues to brew :-)

On the 30th, the Post-Tribue had a nice full page article about the locally crafted beers in our region of NW Indiana. Figure Eight was mentioned a couple of times along with the other micro breweries and brew pubs in this area.

Mixed with the new year celebrations, festivities, and visits by friends and family, I finished drilling the endless holes in the sparge head and tested it by running water through it (as seen in the picture) and I am very happy with the spray pattern and coverage.

Even with all of these activities, I've managed to make some progress at F8, primarily on the mash tun. As shown in the first image, the sparge head is assembled, but not yet drilled. The mash tun frame is insulated and mostly skinned with stainless steel sheeting (one side remaining). The sparge head is also shown fitted into the top of the mash tun. The covers (two halves) for the mash tun are partially completed, but not shown.

We had a number of black t-shirts silk screened a while back and have a few left, but have made a second run with some additional colors and they are due to be completed soon. So, even before we will be allowed to sell our fine hand crafted brews, we will have our F8 pint glasses and t-shirts available to those who will want to avoid the lines at our grand opening (to be announced in the not too distant future). Look for these items on our web site soon :-)

I am now working on installing the glycol protective railing (seen hanging in the floor picture) which Shaun was kind enough to weld up for me. The first step was to prep it for painting with POR-15. This railing will be located just inside of the door between the production area and the retail space, protecting and supporting the glycol plumbing from being bumped into by people who walk through this "hallway".

Our F8 pint glasses arrived last week and I think that they turned out perfectly. We will have these available for sale, along with our F8 growlers and t-shirts. This reminds me that I need to start setting up the online sales web page...

This weekend was busy with preparations for having of a number of our closest friends over for an evening and morning of food, drink, fun, and festivities. The event went very smoothly, complete with climbing videos, bouldering in our basement cave, playing of Beatles Rock Band II, eating, etc. It was a wonderful time!

It quickly became apparent that grinding with a small 10 inch diamond wheel grinder was not going to solve the problem, but it did create a beautiful finish of exposed aggregate, which I'm thinking would be nice to seal with a clear coat rather than tan. I'm holding off on that decision until the floor drains properly as I'll have plenty of time to decide later as the concrete still has to cure for another 20+ days before sealing. In order to solve the drainage problem, I have Northwest Indiana Concrete Cutting coming Tuesday to grind the floor with a large machine that will hopefully take care of the problem once and for all.

This whole new floor thing has kept me at a pretty high stress level over the past few days as the time and expenses rack up without the floor problem actually being solved. Hopefully everything will be good in the end and it won't take too long to happen.

Other projects which I've been working on this week have been to finish wiring the controllers for the glycol solenoid valves (seen in the first pic of this installment) and to hang the neon F8 sign which I had made by a local artisan. The iPhone does not do the colors of the sign justice, the F is red and the rope is yellow, but you get the idea.

On the planning front, this new floor has just become the long stick in the timing of our opening. While I had been planning on opening in January, we now have to wait 28 days for the floors to finish curing before we can put the epoxy seal coat down. Sigh... At least I will have plenty of time to finish all of the other small projects before we open.

Lynne worked on painting trim and now has a bunch more to do as I completed most of the half wall trim cap, with only the section above the cellar door left to complete, the tanks being in the way of working in this area.

The floor epoxy which I had hoped to have for this weekend did not arrive as the company I ordered it from mistyped our zipcode and the paint made a detour to Ohio. Hopefully it will arrive this week. The next couple of major things left to do before brewng beer are to epoxy the production floor, insulate / cover the mash tun, and slope / epoxy the cellar floor. There are of course a number of small jobs which also need doing, but they are all sub-day efforts.

On Sunday, I got going early on finishing the work of sloping the main production floor and after a quick five hours I was ready to come home and relax...

Unfortunately, with all of the equipment moved off of the floor and blocking access to the cellar, work on sloping that floor will have to wait until the main floor cures, is epoxied, and the equipment returned. This leaves work on the mezzanine and staircase rails until that time.

Backing up to the day before Thanksgiving, Lynne and Annabelle had apparently been planning a surprise for me for some time, and Wednesday Lynne and Joel told me that we had to go to Anne's place as she had a surprise for me. I had no clue what to think about this and so was a bit skeptical, but was pleasantly surprised to find that they had ordered me a set of pilsner glasses with the F8 logo engraved on the sides along with a pair of pitchers similarly dressed. As if this was not enough, they proceeded to bring out 14 different beers and a plate of cheeses, etc. in order to have a beer tasting. The purpose of the beer tasting was to help bring Anne up to speed on the various varieties of beer out there. We had the gamut from Killian's Red to Stone Imperial Russian Stout, to some tasty Belgiums - YUM!. Great fun, a wonderful surprise and a great evening. Thanks go to both Anne and my wonderful wife Lynne!

Over the past few days, I've been preparing to slope the floors towards the trench drains so that I don't end up with pools of water or beer in the corners. This of course means that I had to move all of the equipment out of the production area, get a mortar mixer, cement, and sand. Joel helped me do some of this and today, he was a tremendous help mixing the mortar while I spread it on the floor. Working from about 10a 'till 6p, we managed to do a bit more than half the floor. I hope to finish the rest before the end of this weekend.

Last week, when the weather was being typical for the midwest (cold, overcast, damp, and generally miserable), Lynne began work on filling nail holes and painting the door trim. So when the weather this weekend was beautiful and sunny, staying inside painting was not an option.

Over the weekend, I installed the freon lineset for the walkin cellar and began evacuating them to both ensure that the many welds of the 1-1/8 inch copper tubing were good, and to remove any moisture and air in preparation for filling them with R22 refrigerant. In the bottom picture, the two linesets can be seen running from the rear wall of the building (right) across the wall above the staircase, the cellar lineset continuing to the front of the building, and the glygol chiller lineset turning down to run to the chiller under the stairs.

Last night, after determining that the lineset was sealed and ready, I charged the system with freon, making many trips between the increasingly cold cellar, the circuit breaker panel, and the condensing unit outside the building in the chilly night air, made chillier by the blowing of the condenser's fan.

Having the two refrigeration systems now working makes for a couple of big check marks on my list of major things to do before we can begin brewing and eventually open our doors. The major items left on the list are:

Following a meeting with the helpful person at the county health department, we are learning about some of the additional things we will need to do before opening. The two big items being the inclusion of a hand (only) wash sink and sealing of the floors.

Our federal brewer's permit is making progress on being approved and so we will hopefully be able to move on to applying for our state permit soon. These permits are likely to be the controlling factor in terms of when we can open our doors.

In the mean time, I captured these two views while at Red Rock Canyon...

Also, the glycol chiller is now fully functional and simply requries the insulation of the bulk tank and plumbing in order to limit the heat loss from the system.

Next on the list is plumbing the freon lines of the cellar's refrigeration system.

Work was good too, meeting with my friend/boss Mark, doing some brainstorming on my next project. We have many similar interests (pinball, mechanical stuff, etc.) and it is always great to bounce ideas off each other about things we are each doing.

A short trip, I'll be heading home in the morning and my wonderful wife will be picking me up at Midway on our way to go climbing together at EAC...

While we were working on the steam vent, Lynne busied herself with putting on the 2nd coat of primer on the retail space walls. It was a big tradeoff for her as she was torn between wanting to paint and wanting to be outside, the weather being spectacularly warm and sunny. The walls are now primed and waiting for some color, which I think she is the most excited to start.

After we finished with the steam vent, Shaun was willing to try his hand at welding a ferrule to the bottom of the old 1/2 BBL keg that I plan on using for a grant vessel. After Shaun ran a beautiful bead around the ferrule, I ground and pollished it and it turned out perfect.

This morning, after a couple of days of pumping a vacuum in the freon system for the glycol chiller and leaving it sealed overnight to verify that it did not leak, I released the R22 freon into the system and tested it. As the reported temperature reached 32 F, I decided it best to pour in five gallons of food grade glycol to ensure that the water did not freeze. This is a momentous occasion for me as I've been nervous about my Franekstein approach to saving money on the glycol chiller, but it would seem that I've made the correct choice.

Lynne finished the first coat of primer on her walls and I made a small oak "counter" to fit onto the top edge of the dutch door.

Tomorrow morning, my dad and Shaun are both coming to help finish installing the steam vent for the kettle.

Life is good...

The smaller items included assembling some stainless steel fittings to make up the oxygenator with sight glass and temerature gauge, the mounting of the secondary CO2 regulators for the brite tanks, and creating a dutch door out of the insulated steel clad exterior door that separates the retail and production spaces.

The oxygenation occurs as the last step when the wort is transferred from the brew kettle through a heat exchanger (to bring the liquid down to room temperature) and into the fermentor. The sight glass lets me see the amount of oxygen being injected and the oxygen helps the fermentation get off to a good start.

The secondary CO2 regulators will be fed from a bulk CO2 tank and will feed carbonation stones in each of the large conditioning "brite" tanks. This process allows each brew to be adjusted for just the right amount of bubbles and also provides pressure to later serve the beer through the on premise taps, the back of which are showing below the regulators.

The dutch door was a PITA as the local hardware store did not have a circular saw which was rated to cut both metal and wood. So I bought a cheap carbide blade knowing that it would be dead after cutting the door in half. This door is one from a previous project that had never been used. The idea behind the dutch door is to maintain the separation between the all ages retail space and the 21 and over production space. As can be seen in the first picture, the door is now hanging in two halves. I still need to add a nice small counter like surface to the top of the bottom half.

The freon lines are now run and brazed, but there appears to be a small leak that needs to be tracked down before the R22 can be added. Why can't these things just work the first time? Sigh...

Saturday, I did some more work on the glycol chiller system and then my dad stopped by to help, so we worked on installing the brew kettle's steam vent. In the afternoon, my friends Shaun and Mike and I went to see Bob Dylan in concert at the Aragon ballroom in Chicago. Bob is 68 now and still puts on a great show. On the way home from the concert, we stopped at Brickworks and had a good time sampling their latest brews and talking to Tom and Brandon.

Completing the circulation system of the glycol chiller was my top priority for this weekend and I was able to finish this on Sunday. The chiller began life as standalone Thermal Care Accuchiller used for industrial process. I bought it used on eBay and gutted it for use in our system. The original condensing unit and pump were 3 phase 408 volt, but we only have single phase power and I wanted to split the condenser from the heat exchanger to move the heat outside of the building. To this end, I mounted a new single phase 220 volt condenser unit on the outside of the building and found a new single phase pump on eBay. Once the circulation plumbing was completed, I filled the reservoir about half full and turned on the pump to find out if there were any leaks. The system self primed and purged the air and worked flawlessly. The next step will be to install the line set between the condenser and the chiller's heat exchanger, allowing the system to cool fermenters.

Not much to report pictorially this week. I've been working on finishing the glycol chiller system and hope to have more to report on that front after this weekend. Until then, I sincerely hope that everyone has a wonderful Halloween - BOOO!!!

Bob continued to amaze me this trip by stepping up to lead most of the routes this day. We began on the upper tier by setting up one rope between CH4 and A-Beano, then a second rope on The Offering. While we were taking turns on these routes, Ailie, who had been hoping to do so all trip, took the opportunity to cut Joel's hair, and Bob the avid photographer captured the moment.

The other group at Bruise Brother's, four French speaking guys, were working on the harder routes to our left and at one point they wanted to stick clip the first bolt of Jungle Trundler, but could not quite reach in the usual fashion. Fortunately climbers tend to be creative and I captured their effort on my iPhone.

As we were finishing up on the upper tier routes, before taking down the rope from CH4, I decided to attempt the roof route above CH4 called Rising. I had been eyeing it for a number of trips and even helped Rick Weber install a glue-in bolt under the roof by belaying him as he did so a few trips back. The route was difficult (5.11a) as roofs tend to be, and as expected, hence my trepidation. Jumping on cold, I did hang once after attempting the second move over the roof, but then after a quick rest pushed through to the top. A sweet climb - next time I'll send it!

Moving to the lower tier, Bob led Send Me On My Way and all interested parties took their turn. Aim did especially well, overcoming her demons at the start, and making it all the way to the top. We were fighting time as Ailie wanted to be home sooner rather than later, but we ended up doing one more route, Rat Stew, which was Bob's most difficult lead to date as he broke into the 5.10 range - nice job Bob!

Our route list for the day was:

Bob led Scabies, which is his most difficult lead climb yet. He is progressing quite well in his climbing skills. I put up a rope on Envrionmental Impact, a classic crack climb. Another group had a rope on Straightedge, and so I had the opportunity to climb a 12a without leading it, what a blast!

Our route list for the day was:

Today is the first time that Aim and Ailie have ever climbed outdoors and as such we broke them in at Muir Valley's Practice Wall. We worked a number of routes, Bob and I taking turns on leads, then Lynne led the final route of the day, a 5.6 chimney called Dragon's Mouth. In order, they were:

As there was a wedding rehearsal dinner at TNI the restaurant was closed for the evening and so we next headed to Miguel's Pizza for dinner, planning to return to TNI before all of the parking was taken.

The original plan was that nine other friends were going to join us here in The Red, but so far, four have bailed, two due to rain forecasts, one for a family emergency, and the forth was left without a ride because of the third. Three of the nine just messaged that they are an hour away, and the last two are currently planning on heading down tomorrow. I hope they decide to come. The Red is always a fun time and it is especially fun when spent with our friends....

A while ago, I put in an offer to purchase a well used IDD Mini King keg washer and filling machine from a brewery in California which had closed its doors a while ago and declared bankruptcy. My dealings were through Sound Brewing and the lawyers who were handling the bankruptcy. A number of months went by after my check had been sent and finally the offer was accepted, generating the paperwork which allowed me to finalize the purchase. It wasn't until this point that I discovered that the machine was located in the old brewery building which had been effectively vacated and so whereas normally when you want to ship some equipment, there is someone there to place the machine onto a pallet and load it into a truck, this wasn't the case. Fortunately, there was one other piece of equipment left at the location and a rigging company had been hired to load it for the buyer. I was able to arrange to have this company load my machine onto their truck and take it back to their shop so as to avoid having to arrange to have someone open the old brewery again and to hire another rigging company to do the work - an expensive proposition.

To make this already long story shorter, the machine arrived this week and while it is going to require a fair amount of effort to clean it up and make it serviceable, it looks to be a great time saver and a reasonable deal.

Looking at the machine, complete with all of the well worn work surfaces, labels from previous breweries, etc. I cannot help but wonder what stories it could tell about the horrendous trube it had washed from returned kegs, the spectacular beers that it had then filled into those kegs, the people who had toiled to produce those beers, how many of those breweries are still running and how many have failed or simply retired...

Finally, this week's project for me has been to finish the water plumbing. This included installing a pair of large GE GXWH40L filter units in series, one with a particle filter and the next with a carbon filter, then feeding a four outlet manifold. The entire system is plumbed in 1 inch copper pipe so as to provide the best flow rate possible, minimizing the time it takes to fill the kettle with 240 gallons of water...

After installing the filter units, when I removed the bottoms in order to install the filters, I discovered that one of the O-rings had been damaged when assembled at the factory by catching the O-ring in the threads. When I returned to Home Depot for a replacement O-ring, the plumbing guy proceeded to open a similar filter from off of the shelf in order to give me its O-ring. His response to my surprise was to tell me that the unit which donated the replacement filter would become garbage. I don't understand how our country has devolved to the state where instead of stocking a $0.50 replacement part, they cannibalize a perfectly good $56 unit and take the loss. Unbelievable!

Spending as much time as I did at Pinball Expo this past week was hard, knowing that I could have been accomplishing something at F8. Fortunately Lynne pressed on with her work on the retail space drywall and the break was good for me. Seeing all of my pinball friends was well worth any delays...

Sunday we did the final push to finish with the FRP in the cellar. This was nearly all that is left to be done in the cellar except for some trim on the inside and then positioning and hooking up the equipment. Completing the FRP also helped free up some space, which will be good as the keg washer/filler is due to arrive soon.

Lynne finished the drywall and is eager to start painting the retail space. The primer and paint were sitting, awaiting her attention while we busied ourselves with the FRP, and while she would have preferred to paint, she understood my desire to have the FRP behind us.

Lynne has been very supportive as well as a great help durring this entire process - thanks sweetie!

This week is a bit crazier than usual as Pinball Expo 2009 is happening and my pinball roots are pretty deep. I've been fortunate to have a number of jobs over the years which were truly fun. Designing pinball games for Williams Electronics Games from 1993 until their demise in 1999 was of those jobs. The people I worked with were incredibly good and talented and I continue to enjoy seeing those who attend Pinball Expo.

Unfortunately, my friend Mark who was going to attend Expo this year (and come see our progress at F8 in person), was unable to make it after all, but I am looking forward to him visiting at a later date, perhaps after we are actually up and running...

At the moment, I have to hurry and push these changes to the server so that I can leave to make the long drive in and play Whirlyball with my pinball friends:-)

During evenings this week, I mounted the pump for the glycol system on a cement pad under the stairs and installed the exhaust vent for the kettle. The steam vent will be the next piece of that puzzle.

After an evening of work at F8, Lynne and I enjoyed a dinner and some fine beer at Brickworks. Unfortunately we missed seeing Tom as I would have liked to chat with him and congradulate him on his success - the place was booming with business. I also wanted to tell him in person how outstanding his Dunkelweizen is.

Saturday, Lynne continued to sand the drywall and then switched to painting the cellar door trim while I worked on the glycol plumbing and electrical conduit.

We have most of today off as we are heading into Chicago to help our friend Ailie celebrate both her birthday and having run in the Chicago marathon - happy birthday Ailie!

It's been a while since I included a picture of the production area from this view. The tanks are mostly now all in place, the FRP is on the walls, the glycol pipes run along the top of the walls, and the grain mill is on the 2nd floor above the cellar.

Lynne and Annabelle spent some time today looking at paint colors for the retail space. After the mudding/sanding cycle is completed, the drywall will be primed, painted, and made ready for the public.

I realize that it has been a few days since my last update, and we've made some good progress in that time. The drywal is mudded, taped, and the first pass of sanding is done. The cellar FRP is nearly complete, and the glycol system plumbing has been started.

There is still plenty to be done and I'll take some new pictures soon.

While I was working this evening, my old friend Garrett stopped by to see our progress. I had not seen him in a while and it was fun to chat and show him around. Apparently it was the evening for guests as another fellow stopped by on his bicycle to see how we were doing and lastly, I received an email from another Valparaiso beer aficianado who is excited about our opening. It would seem that word is traveling fast and we are starting to get a buzz going.

It needs to be noted that yesterday was Shaun's birthday and while I failed to make it to Pat's Liquors in Porter today to pick up the keg of Three Floyd's Alpha King I ordered for him, I will do so tomorrow...

I sincerely hope that Shaun had a most excellent birthday!

It was fun to actually play with the equipment for a while, positioning, leveling, hooking up the natural gas line to the brew kettle, etc. Also, now that the mash tun is in place, we can begin work on the platform between it and the brew kettle.

The actual construction portion of the project is coming to a close. Last Friday, I had the city building inspector come by to give us the OK to enclose the wall in the retail space with drywall and last night Lynne and I put up the first of the final sheets of FRP on the wall in the cellar.

Our next and final FRP work will be to complete the walls of the cellar. As compared to installing FRP on the ceiling, the walls will be a cake walk.

In brewery news, our low end single station bottle filler and crowner arrived yesterday and will require some maintenance before it is ready to use, but should get us started.

Yesterday, Lynne and Joel helped me install two more sheets of FRP onto the cellar's ceiling. The first did not go very smoothly, but we figured out a new technique for the second and so the rest (five more) should not be too bad. Still, working over our heads is more difficult...

I had been trying to decide upon a used deilvery vehicle. The choice was either a Ford E-150 work van or a larger Chevy/Grumman step van. In the end I chose the work van. While it doesn't have as much of the cool factor or uniqueness that the step van would have, it will be easier to drive, maintain, and more economical on fuel.

While we were working at F8 this morning, Bob Ostrander of IndianaBeer.com stopped by to see what we were up to and we had a nice time talking about all of the great craft breweries which are located in Indiana.

The last two fermenters arrived on Tuesday and look good. They are used and are the lidded open top variety, 10 hectoliters each. Having four fermenters will give us the ability to be brewing more often and to have more variety. While the open style fermenter is more work to clean, I'm hoping that the variety of types will give me the ability to craft some classic ales.

As construction in the main production area is completed, we will be able to move each of the tanks into their final positions and install the electical, gas, and glycol plumbing as necessary for the various components. Once this step is completed, I can also begin cleaning and testing everything.

Very exciting!

Following Shaun's completion of the welding of the small double tank stand, Lynne has preped the metal frame for more POR-15 paint and plans to finish that this week.

As part of working on the cellar, I mounted a six handle draft setup on the outside wall of the cellar with the shanks going through the cellar wall. These will either be fed directly from the brite tanks or from kegs.

The final two fermenters are due to arrive on Tuesday and our space is a bit tight with our trying to maintain enough room for the construction, so I moved the grain mill up above the cellar, which is where I've been planning on it living. The grains will be crushed there and flow down into the mash tun through a large PVC pipe and hydrator.

While the list of things left to do is still way too long to enumerate, the major items are:

On Wednesday, my friend Tim dropped by for a visit while he was in the area for work and it was excellent to see him. Also, Joel had his braces removed and Tim took this excellent picture of us.

Shaun had a few days off from his day job and came in to weld up the tank stand he created for a pair of 150 gallon tanks which I purchased a while back that did not have legs.

My minimal accomplishments since last reported have been to purchase some used office furniture and to insulate the cellar door.

This weekend promises to be busy with lots of work at F8, hopefully getting a good start on finishing the sheeting inside of the cellar as well as the plywood inside of the production area.

A newspaper article this week reported that our friends at nearby Brickwork's Brewing opened to a full house - congrats!

Once home, I had a couple of hours to work on the cellar door before Cameron and Matt stopped by on their way back to Chicago from Indiana Beach. They wanted to see the progress at F8 and it was fun giving them the tour before we went in search of dinner.

The cellar door is now hung and I'm quite happy with it. All that is left is to install the insulation and sheet it (along with the rest of the cellar and room) with FRP. The two blocks are temporary handles until I install the real one. Joel wondered if it was dark in the cellar with the door closed and so we did the experiment -- pretty dark...

After the forklift, I installed our sign onto the front of the building and am quite happy with the way that it turned out. Many thanks to Lynne for all of her effort in applying the many coats of paint.

The remainder of Saturday and Sunday morning were spent installing more insulation in the cellar. All of the walls are now finished and the ceiling has one more layer of two inch pink foam board to go. After a break for lunch, a Menards run for more materials, mowing the yard at home (it has been about 4 weeks), and soccer (scored two goals :-), I returned to F8 and began working on the cellar door. The next step is to hang the door on the hinges to see how it swings, then add the instulation and sheeting.

All in all a fairly productive weekend so far. Tomorrow is our annual family trip to the Hesston Live Steam Show -- should be a nice day!

We did have NIPSCO come out to set the gas meter, so we now have heat and hot water. Amazingly, there are no new NIPSCO stories from this event to tell.

While eating lunch downtown at Isabella Bean's on Wednesday, I noticed one of Justin Vining's works on wood which I had not taken in on the evening of my brother Jon's opening (as mentioned in the 31 August entry below). I love the whimsical feel and thinking that the piece would look great on the wall in my new office at F8 and wanting to support a local artist and climber, I purchased it.

The painting is called "From the 1850s" and is described by Justin as follows:

"A bit of background that you may find interesting if I did not already mention it, is that this I obtained this particular piece of wood from my boss at the firm who grew up in Iowa. Sometime when he was younger they dismantled a family barn that was built in the 1850's and this particular piece of wood was from the center one of the barn doors as you can see the nail holes in an angle pattern going right through the middle of the board. Also, the board was rough cut and to prep the surface for painting I sanded it fairly smooth, however as you can tell it is still pretty rough. A bit about the paint, I used transparent acrylics to let the natural color of the wood shine through the paint to try and unify it. To further accomplish this look one the painting was finished I used a water based stain over the whole thing and then three layers of a gloss polycrylic." - Justin Vining

There is also news on the forklift story. I stripped the paint from the name tag and although it is barely legible, I was able to determine the model and serial numbers and with those discover that while the Clark Car Loader was in production from 1939 - 1964, mine is a 1954. I ordered both the service and the parts manuals and so while many parts are likely no longer available, working on the machine will be easier.

Yesterday was beautiful and after working inside at my computer all day, I was inspired to be outside so I road my VFR into the city and climbed at the outdoor wall at Lincoln Park Athletic Club (LPAC) for a couple of hours. I always enjoy seeing the sunset to the west and the city skyline to the east from the top of the 70' wall. Finally, the nearly full moon accompanied me on my ride home.

I did about 3 hours of solo work at F8 last night, working on insulating the inside of the cellar and finished about 1/3 of the ceiling. There is still a lot to go, but progress is steady.

The picture is of the Clark forklift. I took the forks off for the moment, but you can see that this is a pretty compact machine for its age. Hopefully, once I remove the paint from the name plate, the model number and actual vintage of the machine will be revealed. I'm guessing that it was built in the WWII era.

In other news, I secured a nice pair of jacketed open top fermenters, complementing the two conical unitank fermenters we already have, filling our remaining production space, and rounding out our system nicely for the foreseeable future.

The gallery portion of the coffee house is new and the opening was well attended and very nice with an excellent display of art from five artists. While there, Joel was wearing his Miguel's Pizza shirt from The Red and one of the other artists, Justin Vining, stopped to talk to us because he recognized it. As it turns out, we had met him before at another local coffee shop which is no longer in business. Justin is also a climber and spent a great deal of time at The Red and dated Miguel's daughter. It was fun meeting and talking to another climber in Valpo.

Following the showing, we joined Jon and Brenda for a wonderful dinner at the local Spanish restaurant, Don Quijote. While waiting for dinner to be served, Joel and I were goofing around and I messed up his hair and took this picture. I think it's great and my neighbor Mike pointed out that it looks like a young Bob Dylan :-)

On Saturday, we continued to do some work in the morning and then took a break to go look at an old Clark forklift which my neighbor Mike's family had for sale, followed by a trip to see the progress at Tom Coster Jr.'s Brickworks Brewing Company in Hobart. Brickworks is a full on brewpub in a 7000 square foot space, making our operation feel tiny by comparison. Tom's system was made and installed by the same people who made our brew kettle and fermenters, Premier Stainless. Tom looks quite happy standing in front of his long line of brewing equipment.

On Sunday, following our ritual breakfast of homemade waffles, we returned to F8 to put up some of the plywood which will line the entire production area, giving a solid backing to the fiberglass reinforced panels (FRP) that will go over the plywood. Progress on this front continued until about 2p when we had arranged to pick up the forklift with the help of Shaun's friend Chris who has a very nice Duramax truck/trailer setup. Thanks much to Chris (and Shaun) for their help getting the forklift to my house. Details and pics of the forklift will follow in a future report as I find time to perform the necessary maintenance on it.

Joel and I usually play soccer on Sunday afternoons and fortunately we finished up with the forklift in time to join in the second half of play. The weather was perfect as the fall temps are already beginning to arrive and as compared with only a couple of weeks earlier, the cool air made it feel like you could run forever...

Last night, after moving the kegs, I continued to install the furnace and A/C unit while Lynne finished assembling the sign, with the exception of the "8 rope" which will entwine the large "F". The sign turned out beautiful, but I'm a bit disappointed at how two dimensional it looks from a distance after putting all of the work into cutting the letters out, etc. Perhaps a simple flat painted sign would be been just as good.

Todd (one of the building owners) dropped off the furnace and mounted the A/C condensing unit onto the outside of the building, which allowed me to begin the installation of the pair. I will hopefully have those finished by this evening, which will be nice as working in the hot and humid building takes away from the fun. I still have to decide about how to run the duct work for the room.

Lynne has finished her painting of the letters for the sign and I have to say that she did an excellent job and that the sign looks fabulous.

As we arrived in Valpo, Lynne made the brilliant suggestion that we stop by F8 to see the new tanks. Mark had managed their arrival perfectly and the custom brew kettle and two unitank conical fermenters were sitting in the room, wrapped in plastic, waiting for us to unwrap them. Now all I need to do is figure out how to move them around in the room in order to be able to finish the walls and then put them up onto their leg levelers in their final positions.

Finally, a big thanks to Shaun for finishing the legs for the two small tanks we are stacking. They were sitting in the room, ready for paint.

Next we went to Animal Crackers in Muir Valley, which has a small set of slab climbs in the 8 range.
Casey (5.8) - Led by Molly
Harvey (5.8) - Led by Lynne
Rikki Tikki Tavi (5.8) - Led by me

Adam has only been climbing since May, with this being his third time outside and he is progressing quite well. Joel enjoyed himself, doing best on the harder routes. Lynne stepped right up when I suggested she lead Harvey and did a great job. Bob's skills are taking off like a rocket. He is onsighting 10s now and leading 8s! Molly continues to be consistently strong and smooth. While I feel as strong as ever, I need to work on my lead head a bit as I believe I could have succeeded at Ohio Arts if my brain would have let me...

Today will be a short climbing day before heading back. I'm actually as excited about being home where I can see the new F8 tanks as I am about climbing, but it is still early in the morning and we are just placing our breakfast orders here at True North Inn.

On a sad note, we learned from some of our friends (Barry and JJ) here at True North Inn about the untimely demise of Craig Luebben, who had frequented The Red and set a number of routes here...RIP

Five of the 7 BBL grundy tanks, formerly owned by San Diego Brewing Co. arrived a day early on Wednesday. This was very exciting both because the tanks are coming in and because it meant that we would be more likely to be able to leave for The Red without delay today.

Chris and Karen from Graphic 22 came out today to apply the vinyl graphic onto the window which does not look into the building because the "cellar" is there. The graphic has our Harness Your F8 ™ tag line at the bottom and the rest looks like the window is filled with hops. It turned out very nice. Thanks again to the people at Graphic 22! Now we need to fininsh the main sign and put it up over the awning to help complete the storefront...

Many thanks to Mark for his time and expertise in welding...

Also, I forgot to mention, and would like to thank our other Mark (Lynne's brother) for making a road trip to Ohio very early on Monday morning to pickup three of our tanks and a couple of pumps. So far, we now have a variety of four tanks on site and the rest are scheduled to be delivered on Thursday, bringing the total to twelve. I use the term "tank" loosely as while they are tank like in nature, they each serve different purposes. While the mash tun was being welded, I spent some time organizing our space in order to have a place to put all of the "tanks" ... so excited!

Shaun continued his marathon on Saturday, finishing up the welding of the new mash tun tank stand, while I cut pieces of square tubing for him to work with. Once all the pieces were cut, I also cut out the opening for the new manway that will be welded into the end of the tank in order to allow the spent grains to be more easily removed. As we were finishing up for the day, Shaun's welding friend Mark came by to evaluate how hard of a job welding in the manway would be and after looking at it he signed up to come back Monday afternoon and do the welding. So my work was cut out for me on Sunday as I needed to grind and paint the new stand, allowing Shaun to weld it onto the tank before the manway is put into place. It is kind of like a jigsaw puzzle as if the manway were installed first, the stand would not be able to slide down onto the tank. This can be seen in the first picture for this entry.

Satuday evening was Lynne and my 30th high school reunion, which turned out to be more fun than I had expected. It is interesting to see how people have or have not changed over the years and to talk to the handful of people that we actually knew (and who showed up) out of the 450 something classmates with which we graduated.

On Sunday morning, I ground and painted the tank stand, then began putting up some of the 2" sheet insulation, nearly completing one and one-half walls of the cellar before moving on to framing out the front wall of the retail space (see the second picture for this entry.

As I have failed at this point to provide an architectural plan, everyone is probably wondering what the "cellar" (also called a walk in cooler) and "retail space" are and how it all fits together. So now our architectural plan is located at the top of this page.

While I was putting up insulation and framing the wall, Lynne finished up some painting, including a second coat of yellow trim on the large F. Lynne and I are displaying the finished F in the third picture for this entry.

Finally, as the day was growing long and we were both getting tired, Lynne called me to the door to see the beautiful silver lined cloud out back of our building.

After getting the tank to the building (a big thanks to Mark for this one, and for his ingenuity in building a roller cart to set it on), Shaun and I began disassembling the outer skin. As we did not intend to use the cooling coils (which had collected water, frozen, and burst), we removed them as well as all of the outer metal shell. We then designed a steel frame, picked up materials, and setup shop. I only spent about half of the day this morning before I returned home to do some "real" work, but Shaun pushed through the entire day, continuing to stay after my return in the evening. Of course our bribe of pizza and beer didn't hurt, but together we managed to build the majority of the new framework which replaces the unibody outer shell and lifts the tank up to our desired operating height. Once the frame is complete, it will be coated with POR-15. While the tank is exposed, we will also install a manway to allow the spent grains to be easily removed. Finally, new insulation and an outer skin will be placed around the tank to help keep the contents at a constant temperature during mashing.

Many thanks to Shaun's dedication, effort, and friendship, as well as all of the others who are helping us to build Figure Eight Brewing...

It should also be noted that Lynne and I celebrated our 26th anniversary last night, taking the evening off and going out for a nice dinner.

On Friday, the water meter was installed, but when we tried opening the valve, water sprayed out somewhere inside of the bathroom wall. Later, when I examined the pictures of the wall internals I took before the drywall covered them, I could see that one of the PEX tubing clamps was missing - oops! Lynne's not entirely happy with the plumber as this means she will be painting part of the bathroom wall over again.

On Saturday, Lynne painted sign letters while I touched up the curbs until my mind and hands were both numb and I couldn't do it any more. During this time, the overhead door installer began working on putting in the door but gave up when he could not find enough solid wood to mount the rails. Additionally, I cut an opening into the bathroom wall based on the picture and sure enough, there was a PEX clamp missing.

On Sunday, Joel and I made two trips with my dad's pickup truck to select, load, and unload the materials for the framing of the buildout. It took two loads and about 4 hours, including a short break for lunch. The plumber came to fix the plumbing and we had a working bathroom by the end of the day.

Early this morning, I went over to the building for about an hour to straighten out the problems with the overhead door installation. The installer was having troubles making it fit with only the 4" posts on either side of the opening. After I flipped the brackets so that the lag bolts hit solid wood, he was in good shape and had it installed later in the day.

After dinner, Lynne, Joel, and I went over and I framed out the cellar with the occational help from both Lynne and Joel when we needed to stand up a wall. When Lynne wasn't helping me, she continued to paint the sign letters (you can see the red F) and Joel was also a big help doing the various tasks which he was assigned. Perhaps tomorrow night we will install the ceiling joists above the cellar.

Chris at Graphic 22 let me know that our T-shirts and window vinyl are about to be completed, so we're looking forward to sporting some new Ts and covering over the ugly window.

Lynne has been busy painting the bathroom and the plumber has been busy putting in the new French floor drains. Once the plumber is done making a mess, I will build the forms for the concrete curbs and we'll pour all of the concrete for the drains and curbs at the same time.

In order to keep myself busy while I am impatiently waiting to get started on the construction, I began work on the sign for the outside of the building. It is made from a 4' by 4' square of 3/4" plywood with the logo cut from similar plywood and fastened to the front. The large F in the middle is 1-1/2" thick and is spaced out in order to allow a rope to be tied around it in a figure eight, as on the logo. The next step is to prime and paint the wood.

When I look at this picture I cannot help but think that the sign needs to be bigger, but this is as tall as the space on the side of the building will allow and it is probably more that Joel has grown up so much, rather than that the sign is small...

We are keeping the room clear of materials in order to allow our painter to spray a sealer coat to the main box. Then the floor drains will be cut in and plumbed, followed by concrete curbs to contain any water within the 12'x20' refrigerated "cellar" and production areas. My office and storage will be above the "cellar" and a 10'x21' retail space in the front of the room will be partitioned with 8' half walls. A corner of the retail space is being reserved for a small climbing wall, which will finally provide a use for the auto-belay that I purchased a couple of years ago.

Pinball titles for which Greg is credited (by year) include: Harlem Globetrotters On Tour, Rolling Stones, Hotdoggin', Skateball, Frontier, Fathom, Vector, Speakeasy, Speakeasy 4, BMX, Mysterian, Black Pyramid, Hot Shotz, Lady Luck, Karate Fight, Black Belt, Strange Science, Hardbody, Escape from the Lost World, Elvira and the Party Monsters, Dr. Dude, Party Zone, Star Trek: The Next Generation, No Fear: Dangerous Sports, Scared Stiff, Medieval Madness, and Revenge From Mars.

The refrigeration unit for the cellar has been sitting in my garage for a few weeks now and the glycol chiller components are in storage until the space is ready for them. Our brite tanks have been waiting to ship for about three weeks, our stock of new 1/2 BBL kegs is also waiting to ship. Our custom brew kettle and fermenters were just completed and will be ready to ship soon, so once we finish the construction, there will be a great deal of action. I can hardly wait!